


Orbital Decay

by cosmicmewtwo



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Angst and just General Unpleasantness, Choking, Drug Use, M/M, One Shot, Rough Sex, Science Fiction, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:38:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8345488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicmewtwo/pseuds/cosmicmewtwo
Summary: After a botched mission, Vegeta slips into a downward spiral.





	

X

Vegeta felt a sudden rush of cool air against his face and he cracked open one bleary eye at the sensation. The rest of him felt warm, weightless, and he moved his arm in an attempt to block out the lights that screamed against his eyelids, but the limb felt heavy and slow, like moving through— _liquid?_

_Fuck._

A flood of memories rushed to the forefront of his mind, but he promptly shut them out. He was rewarded with a violent pounding in his temples, but he ignored that, too. Something to be dealt with later. _Plenty_ to be dealt with later. He was cold and wet for now and would start with that first.

He ripped the breathing mask off his face and spluttered, trying to cough up fluid that shouldn't have been there. His lungs burned and his mouth tasted like saline. That wasn't normal.

He waited impatiently for the rest of the fluid to drain around him. The fluorescent lights of the med bay seared his eyes, each light feeling like an arrow piercing straight to the center of his migraine. Part of him contemplated smashing the healing tank open entirely—anything to be out of his amniotic prison and into somewhere darker. But slowly, the feeling of weightlessness left him as his feet settled against the bottom of the tank, and he noted the weakness of the gravity. Barely more than one standard G. He was on a ship then, or a station, and realized he had no memory of how he had gotten there.

Something reptilian appeared suddenly beyond the tank's glass, its lips curled into what Vegeta assumed was its species' equivalent of a smile.

“Time's up, Vegeta,” the medic said flatly, pushing a button on a nearby console. The tank's glass began to recede. “I'd like to keep you here for another shift for observation, but I guess Lord Frieza has other plans for you.”

“How long have I been out?” Vegeta grunted, his voice rasping from lack of use.

“About five cycles now.”

Vegeta cursed under his breath and stepped out of the tank, grabbing the towel the medic held out for him.

“Where's my scouter?”

“It was left planetside. We have a replacement for you.”

The medic gestured toward a nearby tray where a set of clothing and scouter waited for Vegeta. Vegeta finished towelling off and grabbed the device, noting with annoyance that it was an older model several generations out of date. Nevertheless, he tapped in his credentials and waited for it to slowly boot up and link to his comm data. There were several missed connections from Raditz and Nappa, a few general bulletins sent by Zarbon, and a direct order from Frieza to report to Planet Frieza 79 for debriefing. The usual. At least he hadn't missed anything world-shattering in his absence.

Vegeta began to slip on his clothes, ignoring the chattering of the medic behind him. The black combat suit he had been provided fit too snugly for his liking, but it would do for now. He pulled on his boots and fastened his scouter in place, turning to leave.

“When you leave tomorrow you're going to have check in with the med bay on 79,” the medic went on. “We've ruled out aspiration pneumonia for now but—”

The reptile's voice was quickly wearing on Vegeta's already frayed patience, his migraine throbbing in protest.

“Shut up,” Vegeta muttered, and backhanded the medic, knocking him out in an instant.

Vegeta stepped over the unconscious body at his feet, moving towards a cabinet at the far side of the room. He wrenched the metal door open and began rifling through the bottles and vials lined up within, quickly glancing over labels until he found what he was looking for. He grabbed a bottle of a particularly potent analgesic, popping it open and dry-swallowing two tablets before he could think better of it. _If this doesn't fix this fucking migraine..._ he thought in between pulses of pain that threatened to split his skull wide open.

He briefly rattled the bottle, taking stock of the remaining tablets, and quickly pocketed the container. He could sell the rest if he were so inclined. Without seeing anything else of use to him, Vegeta slammed the cabinet shut, turned on his heel, and left the med bay behind.

 

X

 

Raditz stood outside the station's galley, arms crossed, fingers tapping impatiently against his bicep. The last meal of the day wasn't going to be served for another thirty minutes or so, but he was hungry now, and had been for awhile. Not that he expected anything served to actually sate his Saiyan appetite—Raditz wasn't sure if the gruel that was served on the Prodox station technically even counted as food. The rumors were that it was some kind of experimental meal substitute specially designed to accommodate the nutritional needs of as many species as biologically possible—but Raditz figured it was just bad food, bad corner-cutting, and a result of being in one of the most remote and inhospitable systems under the Planet Trade's jurisdiction.

 _Hell, what I'd give for just a decent beer,_ he thought, trying to ignore the insistent growling of his stomach.

He tapped on his scouter, scrolling through several feeds as a distraction. No new messages from Nappa, and no relevant updates on Vegeta's status, though Raditz had heard he was being discharged sometime today. Raditz scanned through the general broadcast channels, but there was nothing of note there, either—

“Raditz!”

Raditz snapped his head to the side, searching for the source of the familiar voice that had called him. Sure enough, Vegeta was approaching from around the bend of the hallway.

“Vegeta, welcome back to the land of the living,” Raditz muttered, tapping his scouter off. He noted that Vegeta looked several shades too pale, his eyes ringed with unusually dark circles. “You look like hell.”

“I feel even worse than I look,” Vegeta barked. “Where the hell are we?”

Raditz nodded his chin towards a large screen mounted into a nearby wall, the image on it sharp enough that it almost passed for a real window. A formidable gas giant dominated most of the view.

“We're in orbit around Prodox III.”

Vegeta squinted at the screen, clenching his jaw. “Never heard of it.”

Raditz shrugged. “Probably not. Mostly this station's used as a mining outpost. Lots of resource-rich moons in the system, apparently. Not much else, that's for sure. Gonna warn you right now: the food's fucking terrible.”

Vegeta placed a hand on the screen, seemingly absorbed in the vista outside.

“I don't remember how I got here.”

“One of the other squads on Omoryl found you. Apparently you were nearly comatose when they hauled you out of the water,” Raditz hesitated before continuing; he had no idea how much Vegeta remembered, if anything. “No one was even sure how long you'd gone without breathing—your pressure suit was ripped open and your oxygenator was long gone, probably ripped off by whatever Omoryllians you were fighting. You're lucky to be alive.”

Vegeta's eyes narrowed to a hateful glare, staring at the screen as if he might burn a hole through the bulkhead with his gaze alone. His tail bristled, flicking in tight circles behind him.

“ _Lucky_ ,” he hissed.

Raditz shrugged and looked away, not keen to attract Vegeta's foul mood toward himself. Not that Vegeta's mood wasn't justified, as far as Raditz was concerned. He had never been to Omoryl himself, but from what he had gathered the planet's surface was more than ninety-six per cent ocean and populated by a civilization of some sort of cephalopod-like species. According to what limited intel was available, the Omoryllians were about average in combat and ki-wielding skills, but fiercely territorial. Any number of Frieza's amphibious soldiers could have probably handled the mission—but it was a ridiculous environment to send a Saiyan into, and with minimal back-up, at that.

“If it's any consolation, the other squads sent there failed miserably after you went under,” Raditz offered. “The mission was a total wash.”

“Of _course_ it was,” Vegeta snarled, turning towards Raditz. “That was no _mission_ , Raditz—you know as well as I do that I was deliberately sent there to fail—to be _humiliated_. Frieza didn't need or want anything on that hellscape of a planet, he just wanted an opportunity to drown a fucking monkey.”

“Well maybe if you watched your mouth around him—” It came out before Raditz could stop himself, and he regretted it immediately. Vegeta had already grabbed him by the shoulders of his armour and slammed him against the bulkhead. His head bounced off the metal surface and he groaned as his vision burst into stars.

“What was that Raditz?” Vegeta hissed, pushing his arm into Raditz's throat and trapping him against the wall. “You don't think I control myself _well enough_ around Frieza? Do I not grovel and _lick at his boots_ as well as you and Nappa do?”

“No,” Raditz choked. “I just meant—”

“Do I have to remind you, Raditz, who you’re speaking to? Should I humiliate _you_ for speaking out of turn to a superior?”

“Vegeta, I'm sorry,” Raditz rasped, struggling to breathe through the increasing pressure against his trachea. “ _But I'm not the one who did this to you_.”

Vegeta glowered at him for several long moments, and even though Vegeta was only a fraction of his size, Raditz was intimidated. Vegeta could easily snap his neck if he wanted to, and even after all these years they had spent as comrades, Raditz wasn't entirely convinced that Vegeta wouldn't.

But Vegeta relented. Slowly, he released Raditz and turned away, his tail smoothing and curling around his waist. Raditz stifled a gasp and rubbed a hand across his already bruising throat.

“Where are my quarters?” Vegeta snapped.

Raditz withheld a sigh of relief, thankful for the change in subject. “You're bunking with me. I can show—”

“Take me there.”

“Well, I was about to grab something to eat first if you wanted to—”

“ _Now_ , Raditz.”

Raditz narrowed his eyes at him. “How long has it been since you've eaten, Vegeta? And that intravenous shit they pump you with in the healing tanks doesn't count.”

Vegeta crossed his arms. He opened his mouth to argue, but was interrupted by a traitorous rumbling from his stomach. Raditz couldn't resist a smirk, and Vegeta looked like he was seriously considering strangling Raditz again.

“Yeah,” Raditz laughed, slapping Vegeta on the back. “That's what I thought.”

 

X

 

Later that evening—or what passed for evening on Prodox Station—Raditz found Vegeta sitting alone at a table in the station's main common area. The deck was mostly empty—a few station grunts were scattered around other tables and seating areas, but were obviously giving Vegeta a wide berth.

Saiyans, as close to extinction as they were, still had a reputation that tended to precede them.

Raditz ignored the other station inhabitants as he slid into a seat across from Vegeta. Vegeta pretended not to notice him, his gaze focused instead on the wide view screen that dominated most of the wall. A vast landscape of void and stars stretched out before them. Raditz glanced briefly at the screen, wondering vaguely what it was out there that could possibly be so interesting to Vegeta. But Raditz saw nothing—no ships, or asteroids, or even a familiar constellation.

“Hey,” he spoke up finally. “Look what I found.”

Raditz slammed a bottle of dark, amber liquid onto the table, finally earning a sideways glance from Vegeta.

“Oh?” Vegeta sneered. “You managed to find some bootleg swill somewhere on this miserable station?”

Vegeta's foul mood radiated off him like poison, a toxic cloud clinging to the air. Raditz didn't fail to notice it. Then again, dinnertime had been even worse—Vegeta hadn't spoken a word to Raditz as they had eaten, hadn't even made a moment's eye contact with him. It was the kind of mercurial bullshit that Vegeta hadn't been prone to since he was a teenager. And Vegeta's adolescent mood-swings were the last thing Raditz wanted to revisit.

 _Frankly,_ Raditz thought to himself as he began to unscrew the bottle between them, _I don't get paid enough for this shit._

“Tracked it down on one of the lower decks,” Raditz explained. “An old friend of a friend hooked me up.”

Vegeta snorted. “You don't have friends.”

Raditz side-stepped the jibe. “Does anyone?”

Ignoring Vegeta's bored stare, Raditz took a deep swig from the bottle. He winced as the liquor burned painfully down his throat.

“Fucking awful,” he coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Leave it to Frieza to banish us to the one station in the galaxy without a decent bar.”

“A terrible predicament,” Vegeta sneered. “My heart simple aches for your suffering, Raditz.”

Raditz took another pull from the bottle. “Yeah, why do you think I drink?”

Raditz began to lift the drink to his lips again, but Vegeta's hand had suddenly wrapped around the neck of the bottle. Raditz lifted an eyebrow.

Vegeta glared at him from behind the ruby lens of his scouter. “It's rude not to share, Raditz.”

“Since when do you drink?” Raditz scoffed. It was a valid question—Vegeta was the least likely among the Saiyans to partake in the usual vices that most of Frieza's soldiers indulged in. Raditz could think of at least a few shore-leaves when he and Nappa had overindulged while Vegeta had watched from the sidelines, only to ridicule them for their hangovers the next morning. Smug pain in the ass that he was.

Vegeta wrenched the bottle away from Raditz. “Anything to make your whining more tolerable.”

The gears in Raditz's head churned for a come-back, but the bottle was already at Vegeta's lips. Raditz watched in annoyance, then horror, as a good third of the bottle vanished down Vegeta's throat.

“What the hell!” Raditz blurted, and several of the room's inhabitants shot apprehensive looks at their table. “Slow down—”

Vegeta slammed the bottle down on the table. “Vile,” he muttered, grimacing. “At least it's enough to rinse the taste of Omoryl's sea out of my mouth.”

“Well take it easy,” Raditz hissed. “We have to ship out of here for PF-79 first thing in the morning, and I'm not spending my night holding back your hair while you puke.”

Vegeta didn't break eye contact as he took another swig from the bottle. “Like I haven't done the same for you.”

Raditz grabbed the bottle back, pulling it towards himself. “What the hell is your problem tonight, anyway?”

“Watch it, Raditz.”

Raditz's tail bristled around his midriff. “You know there's a training gym a couple decks up, right? if you're looking for a fight—”

“Beating you to a pulp won't be necessary,” Vegeta snapped, his eyes narrowing to a frosty glare. “Give me the key to our quarters. I'm retiring for the evening.”

Raditz muttered under his breath before pulling out a key card and flinging it across the table. “Personnel deck three,” he grunted, taking another pull from the bottle. “Room c-fourteen.”

Raditz watched as Vegeta left, feeling something uncomfortable churning in the pit of his stomach.

But Vegeta was gone before he could react, and Raditz found himself alone with nothing but a bottle of half-drunk liquor and a thousand stars glimmering down at him indifferently.

 

x

 

Vegeta sat still in his bunk, back and head resting against the bulkhead, his eyes shut tightly. Though the station's gravity was set to a more than comfortable level, and its rotation too slow to even perceive, Vegeta felt like his head was spinning, caught in a blurring whirlpool of vertigo. He swallowed heavily, trying to calm the waves of nausea climbing up his his throat. Silently, he cursed himself for drinking so much of Raditz's repulsive swill.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, allowing his pupils to adjust to the dim lighting of the room. The room's fluorescent lights were turned off, but the soft, blue glow of the gas giant outside filtered in through a window port on the opposite bulkhead, weakly illuminating the room. Beyond that, barely perceptible pinpoints of starlight glittered in the dark. The blue light sank into Vegeta's brain, pulling him down into a memory of a cold, blue ocean. Suddenly he could feel something alien pulling on his limbs, pulling him down into a black abyss, his lungs burning painfully as they filled with icy water. There was an eternity of clear, sharp panic, and then complete darkness as he drowned completely.

Vegeta turned away from the window, unable to hold the view without feeling sick.

Vegeta pulled off his scouter and began to remove the top of his suit, unable to stand the feeling of the tight material clinging to his skin. He peeled the garment off and dropped it to the floor, relieving only some of the tightness in his chest. Without meaning to, he glanced downward at the patchwork of scars that marred his arms and torso like grotesque tattoos. Vegeta could only marvel at the fact that Frieza was still finding ways to mark him without leaving so much as a bruise—that his skin had run out of room so long ago that Frieza had been forced to find other, darker places to leave scars.

Vegeta let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

He began to dig through his pockets, and produced the bottle he had stolen earlier from the med bay. His head swam as he rolled the bottle in his palm, listening to the tablets rattle inside. He briefly considered taking a few more.

An uglier part of him considered taking them all.

But his body was starting to feel too heavy to move, already paralysed by a comfortable numbness, and his vision blurred under eyelids that suddenly felt heavy as lead. He felt a gentle warmth seeping through his body, and then to his mind, and soon the edges of his thoughts began to blur into one another, memories and sensations overlapping into a disoriented stream. In some distant part of his brain still untouched by the ebb of alcohol, he wondered if maybe this was what Raditz and Nappa were always looking for so desperately in the bottom of every bottle.

He lay back in his bunk, muscles sagging into the bed. The bottle in his hands slipped from his fingers and rolled away on the floor, and he was too close to unconsciousness to pay it any mind. The light from the window seemed to swell, filling the room until even his own eyelids couldn't block it out. The station vanished around him and he felt like he was falling into the planet beyond, falling into a deep gravity well he could barely feel. And then—darkness. A vast and paralyzing darkness surrounded him, stretching out for an eternity in every direction

The universe pulled him into nothingness, and Vegeta didn't resist it.

 

X

 

Raditz returned several hours later, tired, full, and ready to collapse into his bunk. He fumbled with his key card for a moment, realizing that he was still nursing a considerably healthy buzz. He could already feel the beginning throbs of a headache he knew he would be regretting later.

The door hissed open. Raditz tossed the keycard on his bunk and stumbled into the room as the door slid shut behind him. He heard a clink as the tip of his boot knocked against something on the floor, and in the dim light pooling in through the porthole window, he saw a small bottle rolling away from his foot.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, leaning down to pick it up, his eyebrows raising as he read the label. Something like rage began to bubble up in him as he spun to face Vegeta.

“Vegeta, what are you—”

“You've been gone for awhile,” Vegeta grunted from his bunk. He was lying on his side, unmoving, one eye cracked open, his pupil blown wide in the darkness.

“What is this?” Raditz snapped, rattling the bottle in Vegeta's direction. He knew it was foolish to lose his temper like this at his own prince, of all people, but he was quickly reaching the end of his limited patience.

“Oh, spare me the dramatics,” Vegeta grunted, rolling over onto his back. He tossed an arm over his eyes and barked a bitter laugh “Had a migraine earlier. Stole them from the med bay. You can have them, sell the rest. Buy yourself something pretty.”

Raditz swore under his breath and threw the bottle back at Vegeta before slumping down into his own bunk. He fumed silently in the darkness, his face flushing hot with something between rage and embarrassment. Maybe he was over-reacting. But for a moment, he thought—

“What?” Vegeta taunted, Raditz's discomfort not eluding him for a second. “Were you afraid I'd gone and over-dosed while you were still drinking yourself into a stupor?”

Raditz fell silent and began to pull off his boots, carefully watching as Vegeta pulled himself to sit at the edge of his bunk. Vegeta's movements seemed slow, uncoordinated, and despite the fact that he was staring directly at Raditz, his gaze seemed focused somewhere a thousand light-years away.

“I don't know _what_ I thought,” Raditz growled. “But you're so being so... _unhinged_ tonight that nothing would surprise me.

Vegeta was a self-destructive nightmare, Raditz knew that much. But usually Vegeta abused himself in other ways, like pushing himself to the brink in training and combat until he was so bloodied and broken that only the healing tanks could piece him back together. This was all new.

“Are you gonna be functional by tomorrow morning?” Raditz asked, levelling a glare at Vegeta as he began to unfasten his armour.

“Are _you_?” Vegeta retorted. “Don't think I can't smell the liquor on your breath from here.”

Raditz scoffed. “You're one to talk.”

Vegeta dragged his distant, unfocused gaze to the window port. “I'm sure we'll all be more or less presentable for our audience with Frieza tomorrow, if that's what you're so concerned about, Raditz.”

Raditz pulled his armour off and slid it under his bunk. “Yeah, well, it didn't go so well last time—”

“Don't worry. Frieza will be delighted when he hears of my failures on Omoryl,” Vegeta said, and he coughed out a rueful laugh. “I've paid well for my disobedience.”

Vegeta stood up, and moved toward the window port. Arms crossed, he leaned against the bulkhead and gazed outside. His tail flicked behind him, and even in the darkness Raditz could see his muscles twitching uneasily.

Raditz stood up from his bunk, and in the cramped room it felt like his hulking form and mane of hair took up half the space.

“Listen, I didn't realize just how fucked up things got on Omoryl,” he said, stepping hesitantly towards Vegeta. “For you to resort to—”

“Resort to what? Liquor? Spoils from the medbay?” Vegeta's voice was a low, dangerous, growl. He spun around to face Raditz, and his eyes burned now with a terrifying focus that had been missing earlier. “Everyone in this army's resorting to something, aren't they? Including yourself, Raditz. _Anything_ to forget this hell for one moment—because it's never just one planet, or one mission, is it? It's the entire, humiliating routine of it all, with no meaningful end but death in sight.”

Raditz watched as Vegeta's tail began to thrash behind him. “Vegeta, I—”

His words died away as Vegeta closed the narrow space between them, until barely an inch separated their chests. Vegeta reached for Raditz's face and cupped his chin in his hand, hard enough that Raditz winced.

“It's not like we haven't indulged in _other_ vices, Raditz,” Vegeta reminded him, and Raditz couldn't ignore the darker undertones seeping into Vegeta's voice. His mouth felt desperately dry and a hot flush crept up his neck, and Raditz wasn't sure he could entirely blame the alcohol.

“That's different,” he said quietly, and he grabbed Vegeta's wrist and pulled it away. The subtle, disobedient movement earned him a curious look from Vegeta.

Vegeta's mouth twisted into a  smirk. “I'd have to disagree.”

Though Raditz towered over Vegeta, he suddenly felt like prey being sized up by a far more cunning predator. He wished he hadn't removed his armour, realizing how exposed he suddenly felt without it.

Vegeta advanced toward him and Raditz backed into his bunk, forced to sit down when the back of his legs hit the edge. Vegeta stood before him, placing his hands on Raditz's shoulders.

“I was dead on Omoryl. I can still feel the saltwater burning in my lungs,” Vegeta said. He began to trail a hand from Raditz's shoulder, his fingers brushing up his neck and across his jaw. Raditz resisted the shudder that threatened to shake him, but couldn't stop his own tail from unfurling and twitching behind him. “To be revived, pulled back into _this_ ...” Vegeta's other hand gestured to the miserable, cramped room they found themselves cloistered in. “I feel almost _denied_.”

Raditz's head buzzed, and he was feeling much bolder than was responsible. “So what, you're gonna use me to make yourself feel better about it?” he taunted. _As usual?_ he refrained from adding.

Vegeta brushed his thumb across Raditz's lip, and Raditz felt his skin searing at the touch. “What?” he said. “Too drunk to perform?”

Raditz growled and immediately fell for the taunt, grabbing Vegeta and pulling him to the bunk, forcing him to straddle his lap. He saw Vegeta briefly flash a smirk before he fisted his hands into Raditz's mane of hair and crushed their mouths together.

Raditz hated himself for how readily he sunk himself into the kiss, his hands reaching reflexively for Vegeta's hips as his body pressed against Vegeta's. He thought he would get tired of this, offering himself up like this to Vegeta every time he demanded it. So many times Vegeta had come back like this from a purge, or a particularly brutal session with Frieza—blood-stained and bursting with adrenaline, looking for something to work out the rage that threatened to split him open. When he wasn't looking for a fight, that something was usually Raditz.

 _Well_ , Raditz mused to himself as his hands travelled to Vegeta's lower back, his fingers dipping greedily into the waistband of Vegeta's leggings, _there are worse ways to be a loyal subject._

Raditz's hands roamed across Vegeta's bare skin, and he growled against Vegeta's lips as he felt Vegeta’s hands press against his own body, feeling across the tight ridges of Raditz's stomach. Vegeta tore away from their kiss, pressing his mouth to Raditz's throat instead, earning a sharp hiss from Raditz as his teeth scraped against flesh.

Suddenly Vegeta's hand brushed across Raditz's tail, his fingers squeezing into the rich fur, and Raditz gasped at the searing weakness that pulsed up his spine. Vegeta took advantage of Raditz's weakness in an instant and tugged his shorts off, exposing Raditz's quickly stiffening length.

“ _Fuck,”_ Raditz hissed, throwing his head back as Vegeta's other hand wrapped around him and began to torment him with long, slow strokes.

Vegeta's mouth pressed against Raditz's again, his teeth biting down on Raditz's bottom lip as Raditz tore Vegeta's leggings down, peeling off the tight material and discarding it to the floor with the rest of their armor and clothing.

Raditz reached out for Vegeta, his fingers barely settling over Vegeta's hips before Vegeta forced his hands away and pushed Raditz into the mattress. Raditz growled, and as he lifted himself to his elbows he could hear Vegeta rummaging for something at the end of of the bunk.

Raditz felt a brief wash of annoyance as Vegeta rifled through his things. “What are you—”

Vegeta turned back towards him, tearing open a foil packet with his teeth. “Leave it to you to always come prepared, Raditz.”

Raditz sat up completely, glowering at Vegeta as the he squeezed the contents of the packet into his hand, slicking his fingers with lubricant. Raditz considered a retort, but Vegeta was upon him too quick for Raditz to react—suddenly Raditz felt himself pushed up against the bulkhead, and Vegeta's hands wrapped torturously around his cock, slicking his length.

Raditz bit down on his lip, fighting against the urge to cry out as Vegeta squeezed him. His hands gripped against Vegeta's shoulders, and his head fell back against the wall.

“Damn it,” Raditz hissed, and his eyes were drawn to Vegeta's increasingly obvious erection. He began to reach out for him, but Vegeta's hand snapped across his wrist, and then his other, and pinned both arms above Raditz's head.

“You know better,” Vegeta snarled, and before Raditz could argue, Vegeta was upon him, straddling him, pushing down onto him—

“Fuck!” Raditz gasped, wrists still pinned against the wall as Vegeta slowly forced himself down Raditz's length. Raditz couldn't stop his hips from jerking upward, desperate to bury himself to the hilt. He started to curse again, but his voice died somewhere in his throat, breathless at how tight Vegeta felt clenched around him.

Vegeta slowly increased his pace, snarling against Raditz's throat as he rocked against his body. Releasing Raditz's pinned arms, Vegeta buried his hands into his hair instead, fingers curling painfully into Raditz's mane. Raditz's hands immediately grabbed for Vegeta's hips, and Vegeta rewarded him by grinding down on him harder.

Vegeta was panting against Raditz's neck now, his breath unsteady as he increased his pace. With a vicious tug, he pulled back on Raditz's hair, and Raditz hissed as Vegeta's mouth scraped against his exposed throat, bruising with tongue and teeth. Raditz groaned, and his hips bucked insistently, desperately into Vegeta. Raditz pulled against Vegeta's grip on his hair, moved to catch his lips in a kiss, just one kiss, anything to stifle the moans that threatened to burst from his throat—

Raditz's mouth barely grazed Vegeta's lips before Vegeta slammed him back, squeezing down on his face with one hand. Raditz struggled for his breath, panting against Vegeta's hard palm. Vegeta only rewarded his struggles by moving his hand down to Raditz's neck, and clamped down on his throat instead.

Raditz felt his head slam against the bulkhead as Vegeta choked him.

“ _Vegeta_ ,” he tried to rasp, but his voice was reduced to little more than strangled hissing. His hands wrapped around Vegeta's wrist, trying to tear himself free himself from Vegeta's grip. A sparking blackness began to creep in around the edges of his vision.

But Vegeta tightened his stranglehold, and impaled himself on Raditz with an increasingly relentless pace, clenching around him so tightly it bordered on excruciating.

Vegeta pressed Raditz harder into the bulkhead as he rode him. “You see what it's like to drown, Raditz?” he hissed, and without waiting for a response, he loosened his grip on Raditz's throat and crushed their mouths together into a suffocating kiss. The shock of Vegeta's lips was all it took—Raditz's release came quickly, brutally, and his hands and fingernails clawed at Vegeta's back as he thrust into him, spurting into him with every last, desperate jerk of his hips. Vegeta snarled at the touch and pulled Raditz's hands off him, forcing him out and away from him in one swift, brutal push, and Raditz felt Vegeta's hand tangling into his hair again as he pulled him off the bunk completely to slam him into the floor.

Raditz barely managed to hiss a curse against the floor tiles before he was hauled up again by the hair, Vegeta's fist jerking back on his mane until Raditz was forced to his knees, his head pulled back to look up Vegeta. He felt raw, dazed—his afterglow ripped away as he knelt on shaking knees before his prince.

Vegeta's released Raditz's hair, and Raditz slumped forward. He caught himself on the edge of the bunk, his hands digging into the mattress on either side of Vegeta's thighs. He watched as Vegeta wrapped his fist around his own, leaking cock, pumping it slowly as his free hand caught Raditz's chin. He tilted Raditz's face upward, his thumb dragging across his jaw and lips. Raditz understood the unspoken command—his lips immediately parted, and Vegeta pulled his head forward to press his tip against Raditz's open mouth.

In an instant, Raditz devoured him. He dipped down Vegeta's length until he kissed at the base of his shaft, and Vegeta failed to suppress a deep, rumbling groan. Vegeta's fingers caught Raditz's hair again, pulling him in rhythm as he tormented the length of Vegeta's cock with his lips and tongue. Raditz's mouth made quick work of Vegeta—it wasn't long before Vegeta pulled him down in one hard, quick movement, finishing in the back of Raditz’s throat with a strangled groan.

Raditz swallowed him easily, and he savoured Vegeta’s taste in the few moments before Vegeta pulled out of his mouth. Raditz watched from his spot on the floor as Vegeta slumped back into the bunk, his body sagging against the bulkhead. His eyes had fallen shut and his skin was flushed red, sweat beading along his brow as he panted for breath. Raditz wiped the back of his mouth and looked away, knowing better than to be caught staring.

Raditz pulled himself off the floor and heaved himself onto the bed next to Vegeta, who paid him no attention. He rummaged through his small pack of belongings at the end of the bunk, pulling out a metal canteen. He unscrewed its cap and took a deep swig of water, and the lingering taste of Vegeta on his tongue was immediately washed away.

“Here,” Raditz grunted, handing the canteen over to Vegeta. Vegeta accepted it wordlessly, and he took a deep pull from the bottle without looking at Raditz.

“There are some electrolyte tablets in my pack,” Raditz said.  “You should take one.”

Vegeta thrust the canteen back at him. “I can take care of myself, Raditz.”

“Yeah, well, normally you don’t drink yourself halfway to oblivion,” Raditz growled around the lip of the canteen as he took another sip. “Trust me—you’ll thank me in the morning.”

“I’m going to bed,” Vegeta muttered as lifted himself from the bunk, and staggered across the small space to his own. Without another word, he crawled under his bed’s sparse sheet and curled onto his side, turning away from Raditz completely. Within minutes, Raditz heard his breath slow into the deep, steady rhythm of sleep. Raditz grudgingly followed suit, lying down in his own bunk, but opted to push his blanket to the floor. The room felt hot and suffocating enough as it was.

Raditz watched Vegeta's back for a long time before his eyes finally fell shut.

 

X

 

By the time Raditz reached the docking bay the next morning, Vegeta’s pod was already gone. Not that Raditz had been surprised—he had already woken up to an empty room, a throbbing headache, and a single, unread message blinking up at him from his scouter:

 _Left for PF-79. I’ll rendezvous with you and Nappa there.  
_ _— Vegeta_

Typical.

So Raditz collected his things, boarded his own pod, and abandoned Prodox Station without looking back.

He settled in as best he could as the pod launched into interstellar space. He tried to ignore the headache that pounded between his temples and the nausea that bubbled up to the back of his throat, but the vessel’s claustrophobic confines and stale air were not helping matters.

Raditz leaned back as far as the pod would allow, and hoped the antiemetics he had dosed himself with before launch would kick in soon. If he were lucky, it would be enough to knock him out at least until he reached the nearest hyperspace gate point. According to the pre-charted course loaded into his scouter, that would be at least three hours, and then another two after that until he entered PF-79’s atmosphere.

He tapped at his scouter, flicking through the navigational charts of the nearby star systems. It was a desolate sector, populated by mostly uncolonized worlds, hundreds of which hadn’t even been scouted or charted properly. Not so unusual in the outer fringes in the galaxy, but one star in particular called out to him like a siren—he had memorized the co-ordinates years ago, and had spent just as long trying to forget them.

G137. The system was so thoroughly undocumented that all it bore was a placeholder name and little else. At its center was an unremarkable yellow dwarf, orbited by a handful of planets that were somewhere near the bottom of the Planet Trade’s list of exploration priorities.

And one of those planets, as far as Raditz knew, was where Kakarot had been sent to as an infant.

In all these years, this was the closest Raditz had ever come to the planet. He had considered skipping out to the system while Vegeta had still been healing in his tank on Prodox Station, but had thought better of it—after all these years, the likelihood of his brother still being alive, of that planet even _existing_ , were negligible at best. He had been quick to bite down on his curiosity, knowing better than to abandon his injured Prince.

But now, in the isolation of his pod, some uglier, impulsive urge pulled at him. If he didn’t check now, when would he ever have an excuse to be back in this sector? Worst case scenario he would miss the briefing on PF-79, have to make up some lie that a navigational malfunction had sent him off course, and he could deal with Vegeta’s rage later.

Best case scenario, he found another surviving Saiyan.

What if? _What if?_

Raditz chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment as he deliberated. He’d pulled some dumb shit in his life, but this would really be pushing it.

 _“_ Fuck it,” he muttered, reaching up to his scouter and tapping in the code that would override the pod’s flightplan. He entered the new coordinates, and swallowed the surge of nausea that overtook him as the pod began to decelerate and change course.

Vegeta would just have to wait.


End file.
